July 7, 2010

In Palinland, no one knows what's really going on. But I wonder if this is a somewhat panicked response to the recent blip upwards in web interest in the Trig question.

No link on that assertion of blip. I know he's interested in "the Trig question," but really... it's trending upwards?

With all these family members able to speak to the public and McGinniss digging deeper, Todd and Sarah may have felt the need to crack down and use Levi's access to Tripp and Bristol as their latest weapon. [Levi's sister] Mercede has this to say about Levi's latest statement, which reads like a man who has a metaphorical gun to his head....

Sullivan links to Mercede's blog and quotes it at length. If that's too much crazy psychodrama for you, let's watch Levi Johnston with Kathy Griffin on "My Life on the D List":

Listen, I spent many years in the bizarre world of the gay men and fag hags.

Everything is artificial in that world. You've got to start with people pretending that boinking each other in the ass is the same as marital sex. They've been all lathered up (pun intended) over this demented notion for a couple of decades.

The favorite demented vision of the gay men and fag hags in San Francisco and Manhattan (I lived in both places at different times) was that the armies of the evangelicals were massing up on the border for that final genocidal assault to wipe out the gay ghetto.

It never happened, but it was always just on the verge of happening.

The gay men and fag hags adored this theme. Plays and movies about the great, always upcoming assault by the armies of the evangelicals were the standard fare.

Sullivan has been living inside this demented crap his entire life.

And here's what it's all about: It's an attempt to deflect the blame for the carnage of the AIDS epidemic onto the straights. Gay men didn't commit suicide by the tens of thousands as a result of their own sexual behavior. Straight men are to blame! Homophobia is to blame!

Among the endless binge of propaganda movies that advance this theory that genocidal straights are determined to wipe out gay men: "V for Vengeance," "And the Band Played On," and "Brokeback Mountain."

It's all a lie. What gay men really have to fear is not straights, nor Sarah Palin's vagina. Gay men killed themselves by the score with their own sexual behavior. Sullivan is a prime example.

He's looking for somebody to blame for his own behavior. A very popular hobby.

And of course no one will ever take responsibility for dragging Levi and his whole family into the national spotlight as if they were "fair game". No, of course not, it was Sarah Palin did it. Sarah Palin who did the digging, Sarah Palin who made it national news that Levi's mom got arrested for drugs, Sarah Palin who did it all.

I AM a Palinista and I don't think you have to be a fan of "Excitable Andy" to imagine some screws being applied....

Ole' Levi owes a BUNCHA child support to Bristol...an'if the Palins were to really push it, ole' Levi might be left with a whole buncha'nuth'n after they and their attorneys and the California Atty. General finish(ed) with him.

I imagine when confronted with the very sobering reality that he might have to come up with a SUBSTANTIAL lump sum payment, based on 30% of his earnings for the previous year (figuring that the big goof, like many athletes and strippers) has burned the actual cash OR being allowed to develop a "payment plan" to make good his back child support, I'll bet Levi chose Plan B.

And I imagine that one of the conditions of Plan B, the payment plan, was that Levi STFU and apologize.

Sullivan, like Radley Balko, wants to make martyrs of folks that really AREN'T martyrs. Really guyz just let it go....Levi was a poor choice to become a martyr for the Progressive/Anti-Palin Cause. He’s a red-neck, dead-beat Dad, on his way to an unfortunate “Where Are They Now Piece” in Parade, or a pathetic little Obit in the LAT/NYT, most likely involving drugs, depression, and a failed pRon career.

Thanks for posting Ann. Came across Sullivan's comments earlier and I was hoping you would post something. I love his post that claiming the screws used were Levi's love for Bristol and the kid. Unfortunately, there isn't much proof, but why let that get in the way?

In the end, I come to one conclusion. Can these people be any more irrelevant? And on Kathy, a waste of space. It really put the whole apology in the right context – worthless.

When is The Atlantic finally going to drop this turd? It doesn't bother me that he writes for them, but he can't possibly be a net "plus" for the mag./website, can he? For every "click" he generates with his creepazoid maunderings, the company takes another jab to the credibility bone. Gotta figure they're gonna cut him loose some time soon.

I hate to admit it, but I'm starting to feel sorry for Sullivan. He's crawled so far out on the Trig-isn't-Palin's-child limb that he's in a completely different forest and has no idea how to get back to reality. It must consume a lot of energy inventing interpretations of the facts that make it possible for his supporters to deny that he's been completely wrong on this question from day one.

I'm frankly not sure why our dear host even mentions Sully anymore. He's like the demented uncle sitting in the corner drooling and muttering about how aliens took his (nonexistent) dachshund prisoner for using symptomatic nerve gas on the daises.

Well, scratch that. A demented uncle would garner some sympathy for a medical condition. Sully's just willfully demented. Please, don't encourage him by giving him a link. Best to just ignore him.

Sometimes the simple fact is that lots of younger men do not like to work if they can find an older woman who appreciates them and gives them whatever they desire. That coniving often includes a plan for screwing the Family's innocent daughter to get an insider son-in-law's claim. This youth simply wants another try at the Palin family's newly earned money in the bank.

I don't give a shit about either and I'm not a Birther, but there is a fundemental difference between determining one's eligiblity to be President and the basic right to privacy for normal birth to a married couple.

The traffic blip that Sullivan notes most likely occurred on his own blog. His day to day mish mash is awful, so he leavens it with Palin hate, and from time to time with the Trig question, but he knows he's got to be careful. The suits at the Atlantic know that his craziness drives traffic, but they can't totally trash the brand. It's kind of like pairing Katie Couric and Jerry Springer on an evening news gig. They're both clowns but they play to different audiences.

Why not just assume that Levi has had an epiphany of sorts and is now ready to grow up and act responsibly?

In the end, that is the most plausible scenario. The guy was young, came from a home that didn't elevate him into manhood, and got caught up in events staged by people who used him to humiliate the Palins.

Let's hope that for his sake, the sake of his son, and the possibility of creating a husband-wife family for his son.

That Sullivan and others can't find it in themselves to wish Levi well tells us what is in their souls.

The last time I thought about Levi Johnston was about a year ago when Ann showed a motherly concern about what was going to happen to him when the money stopped. It's been twice as long since I thought about the baby.

Sullivan leaves out the part where the Johnson family confirmed that Trig Palin is NOT Levi Johnson's child. Sullivan just can't leave Trig Palin alone, it is insane how obsessed he is on this subject.

If in fact Sarah lied for her daughter, Bristol, the cat would have been out of the bag a long time ago.

Ins't Sullivan's theory that Tripp is actually Sarah's son? Or is he going with the "Bristol becomes first woman ever to become pregnant with her second child three months before her first child is born" scenario?

I've always found it interesting to look at this issue through the eyes of a McCain campaign hack.

Let's say it's your job to vet vice-presidential candidates. Let's even stipulate that you aren't very good at it. Is it plausible that even a very inferior campaign hack vetting vice-presidential candidates would not find out that Palin had covered up the birth of a child? (This also assume that Palin did not feel morally compelled to broach this issue.)

Just watched the Kathy Griffin clip (disclaimer: I've despised her before this)

Sad to say but Michael Moore and Sacha Baron Cohen do this schtick much better (and I can't stand them either.)

Does Ms Griffin even recognize how tolerant, if not a tad bit embarrassed for her, the folks in Wasilla that she meets up with are for her. Watching this you can see how Palin would resonate with all of those voters who feel disdain from the "elites". Even Levi has kind of a quiet "WTF" attitude.

It's reminiscent of when Palin went on SNL and played along and sincerely offered for her younger daughter to watch Tina Fey's child. I like Tina Fey but it seemed that she didn't get it. She could only see an object of ridicule.

1. "9/11 was an inside job"2. "Oswald was a patsy"3. "Trig isn't Sarah's baby"4. "Obama isn't a natural-born American"5. "UFOs abduct people and probe them"---------------6. "Obama created this recession as payback for racism".

c3 -- I heard Tina Fey tell about Sarah Palin offering one of her kids to babysit for Fey's child while they were on. (She had already arranged for someone to come pick up the child.)

My take was that it took Fey off guard and she thought it was a really nice thing to do. For a nanosecond Fey was humanized by it .. but then she couldn't acknowledge it on camera for what it was and had to roll on with ridiculing the person she despiseswho is actually a better, more grounded person than most of the crowd she hangs with. (Was it Leno or Letterman she was talking on?)

Garage -- my guess is that the context is not that Obama caused the economic collapse to punish white people. My guess is that Limbaugh is in fact drAwing no correlation but suggesting that Obama is happy to spread both wealth and misery.

I don't agree with that. Never ascribe complex motives to what can be explained by mere stupidity -- in this case Obama's ivory-tower lack of understanding about how an economy works.

Anyway it's sort of sad that you people have sunk again to berating Limbaugh. Never a good sign for your side's prospects if you think about it. Not exactly controlling the narrative. But go ahead. Throw Limbaugh into the briar patch again.

Since he developed his wild Trig obsession, I've been convinced that Andrew Sullivan is trying to copy Mickey Kaus - and doing a damn poor job of it. He started this shortly after Mickey Kaus kept blogging about John Edwards' affair. Kaus turned out to be correct, but he's a smarter man/blogger than Sullivan. Suspect his pride won't let him give it up now. Hah!

I'm old enough to remember when the Atlantic was not a showcase for insanity.

Sullivan is the only out-and-out nutter. MacArdle is actually quite good on occasion, but she can't reconcile her green eyeshades with the leftward pull of her social circle. The others are better writers than thinkers, which I guess you could say is Sullivan's problem.

jaed said... Ins't Sullivan's theory that Tripp is actually Sarah's son? Or is he going with the "Bristol becomes first woman ever to become pregnant with her second child three months before her first child is born" scenario?

7/7/10 3:25 PM

Trig is older than Tripp, but beyond that, yeah basically Sullivan's theory is Bristol had a Downs Syndrome child (extremely rare for a young mother), Sarah Palin faked it was her's, and then Bristol got pregnant six months later to have Tripp.

edutcher said... I think the HIV has finally gotten to Sullivan's brain.

B.S. philosopher said... If you really want to know what is wrong with Sullivan all you have to do is google ADC.

AIDS dementia complex.

Two years ago on these pages I made the case for HIV-induced dementia as the cause of Andrew Sullivan's strange descent and I was treated like I'd called Mother Teresa a tramp. I'm not a homophobe-- some of my best friends are gay!-- but this is just the most proximate cause of AS's weird psychosis. I'm pleased to see it gaining a little more currency.